Self Reflections

by Bridget Thompson

I'm fascinated by the asymmetry of our faces. When I look at people in photographs or ads, I sometimes cover one half of their face, and then the other - it's extraordinary how the left side has a certain personality, attitude, feeling about it that is quite different to the right side.

I had an interesting experience at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle recently. I visited a booth where your asymmetry is revealed. First you sit in front of the mirror and line up your reflection so that a dotted line goes through your nose, hopefully down the center of your face. Well, my nose isn't straight. It curves right, and actually my head is turned slightly left, and I should also mention that my right ear is closer to my right shoulder than my left ear is to my left shoulder...However, once the dotted line ran down the approximate midline of my face, I pressed a big yellow button. My image stared back at me in a familiar way. There were 4 smaller buttons to press:
#1 showed me my mirror image. Yes, that's who I see every morning. I don't even notice the crookedness of my nose anymore.

#2 showed me as others see me. This was confusing. I look like that? It's somehow opposite to what I expected. My mirror image is what I believe to be true. Because I see me facing myself that way, it's peculiar to see myself, life size, in what looks like a mirror, but isn't. In the mirror my nose is turning right, but actually it's turning left. Oh no - it's just a different perspective! If it were truly me I was seeing facing me (which #2 indeed was), then my right side would be on MY left.

#3 put my face together so that the right side matched the left side. In other words, it made my face symmetrical to the left side. Not only was this weird in that Leftie had a narrow face, pinched nose, turned down mouth and a scary wide-eyed direct gaze, but, because I'm used to seeing my mirror image, I assumed that the side of my face which was the 'true' left, was on my left opposite me in the image. Get it? Actually, my true left was on the right from my perspective.

#4 made my face symmetrical to the right side. I looked like my KhoiKhoi ancestors: wide, high cheekbones, broad nose, mouth uplifted in a soft smile, eyes dreamy and inward looking, (need to go into the dark, cool shade - too much sun in the Kalahari desert). Actually, I wouldn't have survived looking like this. I need my left eye to see clearly, focus, direct me.

#5 put all four images next to each other on the same screen. The same person and yet so different. Four different images out of the same moment in time, when I was looking in one direction, thinking the same thought ('that dotted line is NOT straight'), and feeling the same sense of myself. It's all a question of perspective.

And how does it relate to my brain and the right and left hemispheres? Ok - that's just too complicated. But there is something profound and astounding about knowing my own mirror image so well, and yet being deceived in it.

When I think about it, I would say that the left side of my face is much more open, (not 'true'), my left eye dominant and wide ('true' according to #2). But on a subliminal level, I think my left side is on my right - because when I look at you the left side of your face is on my right. Because my head turns slightly left, that dotted line going down the 'middle' of my face is actually much closer to my left ear than my right. My midline is not equidistant from my ears. Therefore the image of me symmetrical to my left side is narrow and piercing, pinched and down-turned. But that doesn't mean it's True. It's just a perspective.

So what is true? If I were symmetrical there'd be no choice. I would be one thing or the other. Leftie would burn herself out, squeeze herself dry, be bitter and twisted, shrivel and die in a matter of months. Righteous would dream her life away, never drawn into her surroundings outside her skin. Because the space inside is so vast, she'd lose her way, wander the globe, unseeing, unresponsive, unexpressed. She'd be eaten alive in a few days.
Symmetry (perfection) is non-functional. We need asymmetry to survive - it's that fundamental. Poetry, beauty, deliciousness, sensuousness, curiosity, creativity, all overlay survival, like an inverse onion. And of course there would be other aspects to both Leftie and Righteous. Leftie would also see clearly, have intention, be creative and receptive, imaginative and concerned. (This is me we're talking about after all). And Righteous would dream great dreams - but what use would they be without Leftie's impetus and drive? The fact is they need each other. They can't live without each other and though different from each other, they've lived so long together that they've merged and blurred their boundaries, re-shaped themselves into a whole that I call myself. They even swapped names - or is it sides? -so now I can't tell my right from my left. I can look at myself from many different perspectives, not just right and left. Think mirror balls, curved mirrors, fractals and holograms.

When you look at yourself from different perspectives, you learn about yourself in relationship to others and the environment. This is what working in the Feldenkrais Method® is about. More and more of yourself is seen, felt, and sensed, and your experience changes. Your self-image is filled out, clarified and richly colored. Your perspective changes, reality can be many different things. Your survival is less of an issue, and you have the opportunity to expand your consciousness and become fully human.